The person in charge of the Frostbite Engine Twitter could be in trouble

Yesterday was April Fools Day, that one day of the year when media outlets are allowed to let their imaginations run riot and create some truly outlandish — and totally fictional — news stories. You'll no doubt have seen our Nintendo VR prank, and — to save you the bother of looking — we rounded up some of the best offerings in a special feature.

One of the items we covered was a couple of tweets from the official Frostbite Engine Twitter account which made some rather underhanded jokes at the expense of Wii U owners. As you'll probably be aware, Frostbite Engine 3 doesn't currently support Nintendo's console, and whoever was in charge of the Twitter account yesterday obviously thought it would be amusing to poke fun at this fact.

It would appear that those in charge of EA — the company which owns Frostbite Engine maker DICE — didn't see the funny side. The offending tweets have been deleted, but were seen and shared so many times that EA boss Peter Moore has been moved to publicly apologise for them via his own Twitter account:

We can only assume whoever created the naughty tweets has been given a stern talking to. EA's relationship with Nintendo may be at an all-time low right now, but Moore is clearly smart enough to know that in this ever-changing and constantly shifting business, you should try to make friends and not enemies.

Do you think the tweets in question were just a bit of light-hearted fun, and Moore shouldn't have to apologise? Or do you believe that he has done the sensible thing and tried to maintain good relations with Nintendo? Share your feelings by posting a comment below.

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Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded.

Arrogance often comes from envy and ignorance. How much would they love to actually see the frostbite logo in a Zelda or Mario game? And the 4th generation thing is just embarrassing ignorance from who wrote this.

E A they are fools bashing wii u well let me say Project CARS is one of the confirmed game to include support for Project Morpheus, Oculus Rift VR and even 4K resolution support. The game is set to release on Wii U, PS4, Xbox One, PC and Steam OS sometimes in November, 2014.

According to the official FAQ on their website, “Project CARS runs on Slightly Mad Studios’ proprietary MADNESS game engine that was built specifically for next-generation consoles and is scalable to a wide variety of modern PC specifications.”

What do you think about Project CARS? Let us know in the comments below.

I understand some people (unhealthily) attach themselves to consoles. The fact is the Wii U is not the most powerful console available, and so when on a day like April Fools, why is a tweet that makes fun of that the worst think in the world?

Calm down, it was April Fools, and nobody was hurt. If you were hurt, step back from Nintendo and take a breath of fresh air. There's a lot more in the world to get worked up over, a tweet about console performance is not.

The Wii U is simply a different beast when compared to the XB1 and PS4. Yes it's under-powered when compared to those two boxes, but it's also aimed at another demographic entirely. For the audience that the Wii U is targeted at it's doing it's job.

OK, so it was is a bad April Fools Prank and some people need to calm down. On the other hand, it shows the dramatic difference between the image that EA wants to create and what the developers at EA really think.

It wasn't particularly classy, but a formal apology seems unnecessary. We already know most people and DICE and indeed EA head offices consider the Wii U kind of a joke in itself, so the prank wasn't exactly out of character.

Well half of EA seems desperate to get their 'America's worst business' title back for next year. When the Microsoft guy was talking about Internet hate and trolling, he meant spoilt kids being vulgar on Titanfall servers, not the guys in charge of development and PR.

WhaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaTTTTttttt!?!?!?!?!?! U MEAN IT WAS A LIE! That's it, i'm going to write an angry letter.........and doodle in that letter........the whole letter will be a doodle........and it'll smell like nacho chips, that'll show them!!!!!

Not really the Wii U's problem is that its demographic at this point is hardcore nintendo fans who are willing to buy a console for the next mario and zelda no matter what and ultra hardcore gamers who buy every console on principle...... It doesn't have the regular gamers who just want to buy a single console and expect access to a wide variety of games from a variety of developers and it doesn't have the casual crowd that made the original Wii a success either......

That guys joke almost made people punch their computer screens. If you feel anything like that, then you need to take a break from games for a while. It was April fools and the guy was having fun so what's the problem? It's really not that serious and people shouldn't get all worked up over it.

I didn't see nothing wrong with the joke, it's common knowledge the Wii U isn't the most powerful hardware out. People are overreacting once again but it's nothing new, cough Watch Dogs graphics cough.

@wombatkidd People shouldn't be getting "pissed off' in the first place over a joke. You guys say you don't like nor care for their games and/or thoughts anyway so what's the point in throwing a fit? Plus, I really don't think Nintendo even cares what EA has to say. Like I said, if anyone is getting "pissed off" just because of this then they are overreacting. As a Nintendo fan, this didn't bother me in the slightest.

@Excep7ional and he shouldn't be trying to piss people off. I wasn't, but it's clear that's what his intent was. It's not the fault of the people who get pissed off at a troll. It's the trolls fault for trolling. You're blaming the victim.

Eh, I thought the first one was funny enough and doesn't require any apology. All the things mentioned would be cool, but we know they just aren't happening.

Unfortunately the second tweet wasn't really cute or clever, and reads very poorly (unless it was intended as a direct shot at the Wii U console). Whoever is in charge of the twitter feed should've known better - or maybe they did, and someone with less sense made an unauthorized post?

@Excep7ional
Your right, its not a big deal and people shouldn't get so worked up over an otherwise harmless joke. That doesn't mean the joke itself wasn't a bad business move, it doesn't matter if people shouldn't be upset, it only matters that it might rub them the wrong way.

The joke itself was just bad in general, being a lazy attempt at trolling at best is what makes it cross the line. Something like a mock-up of HL3 for Wii U would have been plenty.

As I said in another thread on another site; the really sad irony about all of this is that these tweets simply couldn't have existed if Nintendo hadn't created a console, service and situation where these kinds of insults were applicable in the first place.

People are upset because it smells too much of the cold hard truth.

As per my usual stance on this; Nintendo is the real "entity" to blame here.

Nintendo provided all the fuel that was necessary to start this particular fire.

@KirkWe are talking about DICE/EA, not some random crapstain on the internet, whose "unprecedented partnership" with Nintendo was pretty much burning bridges shortly after building them and those tweets are pretty much crapping on said bridge's ashes; not to mention their recent track record is rather bad.

Heck, the tweets are not even funny on itselves; they are cringeworthy.

@Excep7ional I do agree with you but I would rather anyone even remotely involved with EA or Dice's marketing or PR departments was grovelling at the feet of Battlefield 4 owners. Or, if not currently grovelling, at least be thinking of ways they could be grovelling; as opposed to indulging in april fool's shenanigans. I've never really sent angry emails/letters to companies before but I've sent three to EA and Dice's respective customer service departments hoping, at least, to get some kind of apology and received no response whatsoever. I think it's fair to be a bit annoyed if someone there, apparently, has time for this but no one will take the time to respond to customers having sold them a product that doesn't work properly.

I'd hate to be a PR person in the age of Twitter. Every person in the world (except those in restricted countries sadly) has a global microphone and they're not afraid to use it. Ultimately, not very professional on the OP's part.Please watch the profanity — TBD

Nintendo give them a handheld with 3d they say it hurts,give them a gamepad that's affordable they say its not hd some of you have money while most don't and complain and make life difficult for their own selves much less other people could it just be like back in the days where people had patience.have a U since launch and I'm happy with what it does for the money and the library is getting better at the end of the year.while some people buy a new system with the same games from last gen don't see what the power is for or the XTRA dollars I have to give to xperience the same shooter or rpg with the same controller.these developers need to start making games for Nintendo and stop crying how you can't port a game overnite to make some quick cash on these idiots out there after July see whats up with the all the horse poop that's going on.and Everything is about Nintendo.guess they been hated on by most who can't do no betwr

Anyone who thinks this was some one off rouge individual is sorely mistaken. This was the Frostbite company twitter. All this showed was how the team there feels about Wii U, and I'm sure they're not the only folks in the industry that feel this way (looks at 2014 3rd party Wii U line up).

Sure it was tasteless, but looking beyond the surface, all I see is another window into the world outside of Nintendo and its fan base, and Wii U is a laughing stock to many unfortunately. Like @Kirk said, this is all Nintendo's fault.

The biggest prank against Nintendo came from Moore when he called Nintendo "partners" of EA. If that relationship is a partnership, i'd hate to see how EA treats its enemies.

EA blows anyway. They haven 't made a great game in their entire history. Battlefield 4 is a broken mess, their sports games have less innovation in them than the CoD series does every year, and the new SimCity has been one of the biggest disappointments in PC gaming history. Not to mention that every game Bioware has released under the EA label has paled in comparison to the ones they published themselves.

EA is by far the worst company in gaming, and if it weren't for the millions of casual gamers that buy Madden and FIFA every year, even though its the same game they made last year, maybe they wouldn't be so annoyingly arrogant and anti-consumer.

@bizcuthammer The biggest problem is, that these blinded "casual" flood them with money. And money is a "competition repellant" in this business. "Oh, youre a growing new developer with praised games that might overshadow ours ? Well, consider yourself bought, disbanded and lables a failure"That sad thing is, that ^this happend so often that it isnt funny anymore.

I still think those tweets were just to get the PS4 and XBO fanboys riled up. Gloating about how they always get the "mature" and "best-looking" games only to get backhanded by the publisher they love SO much by supporting the Wii U. Still, I can get why some people would think it was insulting, so I'm teetering on so-so right now.

In recent times, I've come to realize that EA KNEW MS would be in trouble with the XBO. They only just recently pushed out 4 million units (according to VGChartz.con) and that's possibly because of their decision to keep pushing back Titanfall for the 360 and making that new Plants Vs. Zombies game an Xbox exclusive. Some people just couldn't wait.

At this point, they're just trying to help keep the masses going forward and give MS a fighting chance next-gen because, let's face it, with all the useless gimmicks they packed into the XBO MS is just treading water.

@Kaze_Memaryu I wouldn't call this extreme, it was probably one of the tamer jokes I heard to be honest, hell its not 'A Modest Proposal'. It just kind of had a high school bully feel to it. Its just kind of a meh joke too. But I admit its a joke even if it is a pretty meh joke it still is one, feelings are going to be hurt, it is April's Fools Day after all.

I have never liked EA, and while I have purchased their games, its generally when they are used or off a markdown rack. To me, EA is everything that is wrong with video games, and their business polices are starting to bite them in the behind.

The killed off Simcity with their stupid polices, and Battlefield 4 was so broken and horrible, Call of Duty: Ghosts destroyed it in sales. Last time I checked, Ghosts has sold 20.35 Million copies across all platforms while Battlefield 4 sold 9.04 million across numerous platforms.

Now, this was during a year where Ghosts got low review scores(although I enjoyed it) and Battlefield 4 was being hyped as the COD-Killer. Those sales are also well below Battlefield 3's numbers.

I don't the tweets tastless, I just find them stupid. Its like EA wants to win the "We don't know how to run a business award". In the past year, numerous major franchises like Dead Space, Medal of Honor, Crysis, and Battlefield have all bomed on store shelves. Its not just Nintendo fans who are fed up with EA, numerous Microsoft and Sony gamers are starting to get tired of them.

EA and DICE should not be making tweets like this. DICE put out a broken game that got trampled by Call of Duty: Ghosts. Maybe they should be more concerned with fixing Battlefield 4 rather than fanning the flames of fanboy wars.

As for EA, what was the last hit game that they had without the words "Madden" or "Fifa" on its cover? Why would a company that has had a string of bombs in the past few years be so determined to burn so many bridges? Has anyone at that company stopped and thought about “Gee, this may not be such a good idea. We might need Nintendo at some point”?

I honestly don't get EA anymore. They went from being the worst company to being a company that has no clue what they are doing. I wonder how long it will be before Take 2, Activision, or Ubisoft surpasses them?

If the Frostbite Engine can run on PS3 & Xbox 360 then the Wii U can easily do the same. Wii U is 3x more powerful than the Xbox 360, I don't understand all of the false hate that the Wii U gets about being underpowered, Halo 4 looked next gen yet it ran on the X360 , also all of the launch games on Xbox One & PS4 could have also ran on Wii U like TitanFall and infamous second son if developers optimized those game for Wii U it could be done.

I'm sorry, but pissing people off doesn't make it a good April Fools joke. No one believed it, so it wasn't a good April Fools. It didn't piss people off because people got their hopes up, it pissed people off because they deemed the Wii U worthy of mockery simply because it's not as powerful as the other systems. Before the PS3, do you think these guys would have mocked the PS2 for being just as underpowered in its' day? Or the PS1? Of course not. Only when it's Nintendo is it ok to do that apparently.

This whole industry is like a bunch of fat kids on the playground poking fun at the kid who won't defend himself. Congrats EA, yet again you've propped up your egos at the expense of Nintendo gamers. Such a classy company.

Ha ha! the funniest part is how mad people here get over it. It's like people defending their little brother or something while being in denial about what is just the truth and accepted by basically everyone without a WiiU. "he is NOT small! He's just as big and strong as you are! leave him alone!" so what. it's a game machine; and it IS a lot less capable than the other current consoles, get used to it. You all know that's not a bad thing per se so have fun with your wii2, but clearly it's pretty silly to most other people. So what? They can say whatever they want.

@gatorboi352You seem to always be on it's all Nintendo's fault bandwagon so let's ask you and others a question...if Nintendo released a console tomorrow equal to ps4 and Xbox one would you rush out and buy it ? Or would you find a new excuse to cry about?

This has certainly become twisted, into another occasion to admonish fanboys and tell them how stupid they are to care about their hobby.

I don't think April Fools gives anyone license to say or do illicit things under the guise of humor. Had these tweets actually been endorsed by EA I still would have thought them strange, but instead they amount to sabotage of EA's reputation by some twit of an employee lol

Good thing Nintendo has something EA sorely lacks...class. I would have tweeted back so glad you finally got SOMETHING to work because battlefield 4 sure STILL doesn't months after it's release for millions of paying customers!

On a side note I'm not big on FPS games as they get repetitive and boring, but for all activisiona fault at least call of duty always works upon release and is so much better than boringfield

@arkady77 You are correct. Disney owns Star Wars and all the properties under the Lucas Arts umbrella. However, Disney closed (or is still closing) LucasArts Interactive as a developer and they're outsourcing their games. Disney apparently doesn't trust their own Disney Interactive division because they (Disney) have EA (of all people) exclusive rights to make Star Wars games.

Don't be mad at EA for speaking to the truth... be mad at Nintendo for releasing a "new" and grossly underpowered wimpy console that can't even compete with the Sony or MS hardware from 8 years ago. Truth hurts, fanboys. (and I consider myself a Nintendo fanbody, since Colecovision days, when most of you weren't alive).

I always found it weird how the head of the company that doesn't put games on Nintendo systems (for the most part) used to work for rivals Sega and Microsoft. I guess we should trust a company headed by a person like that to put effort into Nintendo consoles...
And before you say "What about Sony?" their consoles didn't compete with Sega like Nintendo's did.

I'm not bothered by those tweets, but reading some of these comments...It'd be better if April 1st were just another day.

And I honestly wish it were.

At the same time, those tweets seemed more like they were made by someone using April Fools Day as an excuse to make a jab at another company rather than to make an actual joke. It's not very professional in my opinion.

Meh, let them make schoolyard taunts at Nintendo. They are jelly because Nintendo's physics based engines are resource lite, fast, and pretty.

Can you imagine these guys trying to make something that plays as flawlessly with such beautiful art and satisfying physics as Super Mario Galaxy, ExciteBots, or Skyward Sword with the limitations of the Wii?

If I need another system resource draining shooter that plays like any number of bloated budget cover-and-strafe shooters, we'll call you.

Unless something bad is said about Xbox One, it seems people don't have much of a sense of humor. Make fun of Nintendo or Sony, no, we can't have that. I'm a Nintendo fan and I didn't have a problem with this at all. It was a joke, people need to find something more important to get mad about and there's other things surrounding Nintendo- clueless investors trying to force Iwata out for example- to be more concerned about than a few April Fool's jokes.

@gatorboi352fine you will but how many others would? you and many other posters fail to understand...many of your fellow website visitors DONT want nintendo to be a carbon copy of sony or microsoft. We want different options other than dlc to death and the same old song and dance

@theadrock13first off the wiiu is more powerful than ps3 and xbox360, people love to use this argument but they are wrong.

second, their is no need for wiiu to be as powerful as ps4/Xbox one..if they were all the same in terms of power what purpose would it serve?

finally lets talk about power...colecovison and intellivision were "more powerful" than the atari 2600 and what happened? PLENTY Of powerful systems in the past and so what? did neo geo, cdi, psp, ps vita, 3do, or 32x set the world on fire? exactly

@AJSjedi Nice post, seems people are still thinking that the Wii U is less powerful then the Xbox360 and PS3.

That's the power of misinformation. This is just like AVGN James Rolfe and his explanation of Genesis "blast processing". He explained in a video how the SNES was more powerful in every aspect except the core processor, but SEGA capitalized on their one small superficial advantage to market their console brilliantly. It all seems very quaint and harmless compared to the absurdity of the "console wars" today.

Again, Nintendo seems to have a weak CPU in comparison to the competition, but putting things in perspective, that's even less vital then the one disadvantage the SNES conceded to the Genesis.

Not to get too deep into the tech, the Wii U sports a far more powerful custom GPU(graphics processing unit) that works a bit differently then in generations past. Like your video card, it takes much of the rendering burden away from the CPU. The Wii U also sports 4X the RAM, and they used faster DDR5 chips (like the PS4). The maximum video output of the 360 and PS3 is 720p, while the Wii U can output up to 1080p.

People point to some bad looking early ports for further evidence, but that's an unfair comparison. First you have to take into account how much time, effort, and expertise went into creating the port. Secondly, you have to take into account new unfamiliar hardware vs hardware that been pushed for seven years and is intimately familiar to these developers. The Wii U actually had some pretty nice looking launch titles, when they were handled by studios willing to put in the time and money. Need for Speed: Most Wanted U, Rayman Legends, and Deus Ex: Human revolution are all considered to be the definitive version on Wii U.

Well that's enough of that...it looks like we're going to be plagued by misinformation and negative public perception going forward.

@kensredemption , actually son, I'm a Nintendo fanboy like you and most of the people on here. I wish Nintendo would recapture their place as the leader in the video game market. We disagree on what Nintendo should do, but most of us want the same in the end: great games from Nintendo.

@Nintendude789 , your statement in nonsensical. The American market has rejected the Wii U no matter what you want to claim. They should move on and give the market what they want, which based on the sales figures from MS and Sony... well you figure it out.

@AJSjedi, sigh Believe what you want. Cling to a system that nobody is buying, nobody is deving for, and tell yourself that its all the boogieman's fault and people will somehow learn to love it eventually. You are deluded.

FYI, I hate MS and Sony, I'm a Nintendo only household, but they are simple behind the 8-ball for years now and no sign of catching up. And if you don't know this then you're just not paying attention. My comments are not for malice but for want of a Nintendo resurgence.

Just my two cents:
Some people on here don't seem to know what constitutes a good april fools day joke, or (imho) just don't have a good sense of humor.
You only need to look at the other april fools jokes to see the difference (hint: if you can't tell the difference in intent and tone of the joke, then it's just you)
Google's joke (as nearly always) was brilliant, lighthearted and well thought out. Blizzard had a nice one, and a few other software companies also made an effort to do something worthwhile.
NLife's joke was good too; just a little tease, giving some people a bit of hope and then gently pulling the rug out from under them without hurting feelings too much, which in turn makes it also much easier for people to own up to the fact that they fell for it, even if only for a moment.
And in other industries/media there were also plenty of good natured ones that set the example of what april fools jokes SHOULD be like. Just an example: the weather news on one of the commercial stations here in the Netherlands reported that temperatures were going down near the end of the week and light snow could be expected. The joke may be lame or stupid to some of you but it is mostly in the delivery and the weatherman kept a straight face all the way through explaining where this supposed weather was coming from. Oh well, guess you had to be there to appreciate it, but I hope you get the idea of what I'm trying to get at.
Now don't get me wrong; even though I'm a longtime Nintendo supporter, I'm also in the camp of all of you that are saying that Nintendo is to blame for a large part for the situation they are in right now, and they still need to work VERY hard to make things better. It isn't going to be a win anymore, but to say all is lost, is a bit too pessimistic for my taste. And you also don't kick someone when they're down, regardless of the fact that things they are "accused of" are true or not. It's just not done, PERIOD.
Now, to get to the point, and many of you have already said it: you don't have to own a degree in psychology to see the idea behind DICE's "joke" because it had none of the qualities that an actual april fools joke should have had. April fools is meant to make you doubt to a point that it makes you think that something COULD be real and a percentage of the populace actually falling for it is of course also the goal of a good april fools joke. No sane person believed anything from DICE coming to Wii U, let alone anything based on Frostbite. And also stating the Wii U to be the most powerful console is just WAY too obvious for anyone besides the most gullible person walking this Earth to ever fall for believing this "joke" to be an april fools day prank.
Them being the idiots that they are more than oozes out from both twitter messages (and as some of you have already said, the gen 4 statement is a clear sign of their stupidity) and Peter Moore, by apologizing (and rightfully so, both from a business aspect as well as from a decency aspect) acknowledges this, so it truly wasn't a nice joke, and I think it is pretty safe to say that someone in Peter Moore's position wouldn't bother taking the time to make a public statement like this if he didn't think it was truly necessary. No, it was just an underhanded attempt at using april fools as an excuse to make one more insult towards the company that they so seem to loathe at DICE. Some of you may find that truly funny, but that hardly constitutes a good sense of humor in my book and compared to other, successful april fools jokes, you too should come to the conclusion that this one just didn't cut it as being one. A bad joke maybe, but certainly no true april fools...
And as for the (WAY too endless) Wii U power debate? Some of you might find this an interesting read:http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Wii-U-Memory-Bandwidth-GPU-More-Powerful-Than-We-Thought-62437.html
Well, my two cents turned into something closer to twenty bucks instead, so thanks in advance to all of you nice enough to read through it entirely...

EA is still in business?Funny they make fun of the console they were too stupid to figure out how to develop for.The wii u is fully capable of running frostbite (probably better than xb1and ps4) But EA is too dumb to figure out how the wii u runs.To the guy/girl talking about project cars for wii u. The wii u version will be their masterpiece. Can't wait for it to come out. Also can't wait for watchdogs for wii u. (end of year for watchdogs on wii u)Give it a couple more years and the wii-u will catch up in sales. And in a couple years when all other game devs are making games on the wii u EA still won't have it figured out.